An examination of opportunities and risks to private forest planning efforts among Connecticut private forest owners

Abstract

Private landowners own 56 % of forest lands in the United States, yet only 11 % of forest landowners have a management plan despite the ability of a plan to help establish goals and actions to promote forest stewardship. We conducted a web-based survey targeting private forest owners in Connecticut to understand the motivations and barriers to participating in a management planning process and paired the results with economic and environmental targets spatially. Landowners without plans differed from plan holders by gender identity and average parcel size, in addition to being less familiar with educational programs, and having personal priorities that did not include harvesting timber. Our findings indicate that barriers still inhibit engaged owners from seeking out and obtaining plans, supporting the notion that financial incentives associated with planning are less of a driver for active stewardship than alignment with landowner priorities. Survey results informed the development of forest opportunity and risk zones that incorporated social, economic, and environmental variables.